Who in childhood did not dream of laser? Some men still dream. Regular laser pointers with low power are no longer relevant, since their power leaves much to be desired. There are only 2 ways left: buy an expensive laser or make it at home using improvised means.
There are the following methods of making a laser with your own hands:
- From an old or broken DVD drive
- From a computer mouse and flashlight
- From a kit of parts purchased from an electronics store
How to make a laser at home from an old oneDVDdrive
How to make a laser from a computer mouse
Laser power made from computer mouse will be much less than the power of the previous laser. The manufacturing procedure is not very different.
- The first step is to find an old or unwanted mouse with a visible laser of any color. Mice with an invisible glow will not work for obvious reasons.
- Then carefully disassemble it. Inside, you will notice a laser that will have to be soldered with a soldering iron
- Now repeat steps 3-5 from the above instructions. The difference between such lasers, we repeat, is only in power.
- For a long time I had an idea to draw on a PC, and to indulge in Photoshop and illustrator.
- Yes, there are tablets for this, but I consider buying, ala, “try and forget” to be an inappropriate decision))
Therefore, it was decided to make from what is at hand ... And what do we have? That's right - mouse)
And we also have a marker in which you can try to shove her insides.
- As it turned out, not everything is so simple, there are usually more details in mice than fits into the marker.
- However, if you look, then you can find a ONE-CHIP mouse, inside the kit - 2 electrolytes of 47 microfarads / 10V (one on the power supply, and the second on the button) + a ceramic capacitor for 100nf.
- It connects directly from the PC, all buttons also go directly.
- This chip already carries a sensor + controller.
- By size - DIP chip.
1) How does the mouse work?
It is a CAMERA that “photographs” the surface. The information enters the chip, it compares this “snapshot” with the previous one and determines the movement.
- She just shoots off high speed.
- In order for the “camera” to see what it is filming - it is illuminated by an LED (usually red), you CAN put any (of a different color / size). And power from anything.
- Light-emitting diode not synchronized, and the change in brightness is done to save energy, protect the matrix (camera) and aesthetics.
- An important point- optics... The meaning is simple - you need the “picture” of the surface to be sharp (otherwise you cannot compare), in general, as in your favorite soap dish.
2) What do we need in order to repeat?
- Mouse with one chip(which one is above). The price is $ 3. From it we will take the chip, body kit and lens.
- Marker (also above). He's for 50 cents))
- Hot melt glue.
- 3mm LED (any color)
- Momentary button (there is a photo below). It will be analogous to the left mouse button.
- Anything for decoration (the handle for the design should be with the design;))
3) Let's get started:
- Disassemble the mouse (you can even break the case, we don't need it). Suitable for us so, it is cheap and single-chip!
- Draw the pinout of the microcircuit ( the picture below is an example). The pinout can be drawn from the board.
- Cut off the unnecessary part of the optics and glue the rest with hot melt glue to the sensor:
- Parse the marker. We will not need the upper part of it.
- Make a hole for the button
- Pull the wire through the marker.
You can take the following buttons, for example:
- Assemble the MK + wires + for the button + body kit by hinged soldering. Should fit in the marker.
- Fill with hot melt glue (it is better to check how it works first)
It will turn out something like that)) No drivers are needed, the mouse is still:
To solve one of the problems, I needed to programmatically receive and process images of a small area of the paper surface from a very close distance. Having not received a decent quality when using the usual USB cameras and already halfway to the store for an electron microscope, I remembered one of the lectures in which we were told how various devices are arranged, including a computer mouse.
Preparation and some theory
The details of how modern optical mouse I will not go into it, it is written in great detail about this (I recommend reading it for general development).Googling information on this topic and disassembling an old Logitech PS / 2 mouse, I saw a picture familiar from articles from the Internet.
Not a very complicated layout of "first generation mice", an optical sensor in the center and a PS / 2 interface chip a little higher. The optical sensor I came across is an analogue of the "popular" models ADNS2610 / ADNS2620 / PAN3101. I think they and their counterparts were mass-produced at the same Chinese plant, receiving different markings at the output. The documentation for it was found very easily, even together with various code examples.
The documentation says that this sensor receives an 18x18 pixel image of a surface up to 1500 times per second (resolution 400cpi), stores it and, using image comparison algorithms, calculates the displacement in X and Y coordinates, relative to the previous position.
Implementation
To "communicate with the sensor" I used the popular Arduino computing platform, and decided to solder directly to the legs of the chip.
We connect 5V and GND to the corresponding Arduino outputs, and the SDIO and SCLK sensor pins to digital pins 8 and 9.
To obtain an offset in coordinates, you need to read the value of the chip register at addresses 0x02 (X) and 0x03 (Y), and to dump a picture, you must first write the value 0x2A at 0x08, and then read it 18x18 times from the same place. This will be the last "memorized" value of the brightness matrix of the image from the optical sensor.
How I implemented this on Arduino can be found here: http://pastebin.com/YpRGbzAS (~ 100 lines of code in total).
And to receive and display the image, a program was written in Processing.
Result
After a little "finishing" the program for my project, I was able to receive a picture directly from the optical sensor and perform all the necessary calculations on it.
You can notice the texture of the surface (paper) and even individual letters on it. It should be noted that such a clear picture quality is obtained due to the fact that the developers of this mouse model added a special glass stand with a small lens directly under the sensor to the design.
If you start to raise the mouse above the surface even a couple of millimeters, the clarity immediately disappears.
If you suddenly want to repeat this at home, to find a mouse with a similar sensor, I recommend looking for old devices with a PS / 2 interface.
Conclusion
Although the resulting image is not very large, it was quite enough for my task (barcode scanner). It turned out very economically and quickly (mouse for ~ 100r + Arduino + a couple of days to write code).I will leave links to materials that were very useful to me for solving this problem. It really was not difficult and was done with great pleasure. Now I am looking for information about the chips of more expensive models of modern mice for obtaining high-quality images with high resolution. Perhaps I will even be able to assemble something like a microscope (the image quality from the current sensor is clearly not suitable for this). Thank you for the attention!
You constantly use a computer mouse (or, to put it “pretentiously”, a mechanical manipulator that converts motion into a control signal), have you ever wondered what can be done with a computer mouse? It turns out not so little. Select an object or copy it, move or delete, open or close a file or folder, all and much more can be done with a computer mouse. Let's talk about this.
In this lesson, we will get acquainted with the computer mouse, learn some of its secrets, and also learn what can be done with the mouse in the browser. Using the mouse, you can select a folder, file or some program and perform some actions, move it to the desktop area, open a folder or launch a program. You can copy or delete a word or whole text.
Computer mice are ballpoint, laser, wired, wireless. But the principle of operation is the same for everyone. When you move the mouse over the surface of your table, the cursor moves on the monitor screen, duplicating your actions. There are only three main buttons required for working with a computer mouse. These are the left and right keys and the scroll wheel. Using a computer mouse and additional buttons on the keyboard, you can significantly simplify and facilitate many operations on the desktop, when working in programs and in browsers. Let's take a look at some of the tricky things to do with the mouse.
The simplest operation that you probably already had to perform is to select some text. To do this, just put a vertical slash at the beginning of the text. It is also called in English- pipe(in Russian you can safely pronounce "Pipe") To do this, with the left mouse button, click at the beginning of the text and hold down the left mouse button and drag (without releasing the button) to the place where the desired text ends. But what if the length of the text exceeds the page size? The following combination will help you here. Place the cursor at the beginning of the text, hold down a key, on the keyboard, Shift and click with the left mouse button, without releasing the key on the keyboard, go to the end of the desired text and press the left key again. All text is selected, you can perform further actions with it.
Copy and paste the text.
You need to move part or all of the text to another place or folder. We already know how to select text. Now, on the selected text, right-click and find "copy" in the context (drop-down) menu and click on this item. Everything necessary information saved in your clipboard (Clipboard, if you do not delve into the intricacies, temporary storage where the files, folders, text you copied are stored). Now find the place where you need to paste the copied, right-click on it and in the drop-down menu, select "paste". These operations can be done in another way. Highlight what you want, then hold down the keyboard keys CTRL + C. Everything is copied. Select the place where you want to paste the copied, put a slash (one click with the left mouse button) in the right place and press CTRL + C. All - the text is pasted.
We change the scale.
Sometimes, having opened some site or page and you see that it is very small font... Not everyone, especially the elderly, has good eyesight and it is difficult for them to read such a font. It turns out that this can be fixed quite simply. To do this, hold down the CTRL key and scroll the mouse wheel in front or back. Accordingly, the font size will increase or decrease.
Open the link in a new tab.
You have already had to, while working on a page, go to another page or tab without closing the first one. In this case, you performed the following action: "Right-click on the link and in the menu that opens, select - Open page in a new window." But this whole process can be simplified. Hold down the CTRL key and click on the link. That's it, the link will open in a new window.
Move with the right mouse button.
You already know how to move a folder or shortcut in the plane of the desktop. Who does not know, I will tell you. Hold down the selected object with the left mouse button and, without releasing it, move it to the selected place. But it turns out that this operation can be performed using the right button. The principle is the same. Right-click and drag to the desired location. When you release the key, a menu will open where you will be asked about your next steps. Choose what you want.
Select a word or text.
If you need to select a word, then just hover the mouse cursor over the desired word and double-click the left key. Is it possible to select the desired paragraph in this way? Of course. Place the cursor again at the beginning of the text and click the left button three times. All the necessary paragraph is highlighted, you can perform further actions with it.
Third button.
Most users do not use the third mouse button. Few people know about its capabilities. And those are at least something she can do. For example, when you open a browser page and click on the wheel, the cursor will change to round. Now you can, by moving the cursor in different directions, the movement of the page on the screen will also scroll in all directions, and the further the scroll pointer moves, the faster the page will scroll. Sometimes very handy when scrolling through pages with large text.
These are the little tricks of the computer mouse. We will stop there. Of course, the topic is much broader than stated, but throughout all subsequent lessons, we will return to this question.
In the next lesson, we will introduce you to the concept of keyboard shortcuts. These are combinations of two or more keys that can be pressed to perform tasks that would normally require a mouse or other pointing device. Keyboard shortcuts make working with your computer easier, saving you time and effort when working with Windows and other programs ...
In the meantime, I say goodbye to you. As always from you questions, reviews and of course comments. If you have not yet subscribed to my news, then you are welcome!
What can you do with an old mouse? and got the best answer
Reply from User deleted [guru]
Only it is better to make the lamp LED, since incandescent lamps are very hot, and the plastic of the mouse will probably melt.
P.S. Very good LEDs can be taken from lighters with flashlights. Lighters withstand only 2-3 refills, and the LED is practically eternal.
Source: We don't throw anything away, we don't sell, and we try not to buy. But we give and select, fix and do it ourselves!
Answer from Yashpa[guru]
take a three-liter jar, a mound of sawdust, cut an apple, a carrot and plant your mouse there - let him live on
Answer from Dimon XXX[expert]
You can make an interesting table lamp: attach a stand at the point of attachment of the wire (you can ready-made from an unnecessary lamp), instead of a ball - a light bulb. The switch can be made from the filling of the mouse itself by pressing a button. You can make and change the incandescence of the lamp with a scroller and much more.
In this matter, everything depends on the imagination and knowledge of electrical engineering.
Answer from Linza[guru]
Look at what company she is. Go to their website and offer them to buy a rarity from you! The money will be !?
Answer from Nikolay Davydov[guru]
hang on the wall (crack, glue the glass bead - let your imagination run wild)
Answer from Deathwatch[active]
leave of course .... I have a row of mouse, I take out the good old ball mouse and go ...
Answer from SHP! ON[guru]
draw eyes with a marker, cut the wire shorter and you can put it on the shelf
and you will be happy!
Answer from Filth[guru]
throw it out and buy a new one where is your logic?
Answer from Owl[guru]
Blimey! RARITY is real. Since 1999, so many mice have died a natural death for me, and here - a long-liver right. It is imperative to find a worthy use for such a veteran.
Answer from Above me[master]
Disassemble to find out what's inside, I've already disassembled 3 pieces
Answer from Copperhead[guru]
Don't throw it away! She can still survive three new ones!
Answer from Neohuman[guru]
You can, for example, paint in a folk or other style - make it exclusive.
You can then cover it with varnish so that the paint does not rub off (this is how they do)
Answer from Mark slavin[active]
give it to the old cat
Answer from User deleted[active]
Throw it out !!
Answer from User deleted[guru]
fit her cat
Answer from Elena Starky[guru]
Hang in the fridge 🙂 And show the guests "My mouse has hung up" 🙂
I have long dreamed of doing this, all hands do not reach 🙂
Answer from 2 answers[guru]
